I finally broke down and purchased some waterstones so that I could take my sharpening skills to the next level. In my opinion the only real drawback to waterstones is that they don’t stay flat. Thus as soon as I placed my order, I spent a little time searching the net looking for the best flattening method. Lots of methods exist, but the two most common are: a coarse diamond honing stone, or sandpaper on a surface plate.
While diamond hones will do a great job of quickly removing material they are notoriously unflat, and thus in my opinion not acceptable. I have a surface plate, and while it is flat, I don’t like the idea of constantly having sandpaper glued to it. Additionally a 70 pound surface plate isn’t very portable. What I finally decided on (shown below) was a hybrid approach.
Continue Reading…
As promised, Here are some shots of the refinished Stanley #15. I’ve only spent about an hour using this plane, but I like it’s size and lateral blade adjustment a lot more than I do my #60-1/2. Within a minute of putting in a new Hock blade, I was using it like a miniature smoother, and taking full width transparent shavings in scrap cherry. I also like the size of the #15 better, it’s greater length and width fit’s into my hand better than the #60-1/2.
I haven’t spent much time in the shop the last month or so because of a big project at work. Thankfully that project is now over, and I’ve been able to get into the shop again. One of the projects I want to get completed before Christmas is refurbishing the Stanley #15 I picked up on eBay about 6 weeks ago. I picked it up, because I wanted A regular angle block plane to supplement my #60-1/2. I’ll probably do the refurbishment after I finish Rebecca’s Shoe Rack. The following shots (I went a little overboard) are as I received it from the seller.
Last weekend I started making Rebecca some stack-able shoe racks for her closet. I wanted to make them from materials I had on hand (cherry), so after an hour or so of fiddling in Sketchup I came up with the following design. The design is pretty simple, it’s made from 1″ x 3/4″ stock. Something I strive for in all my projects is a minimization of fasteners, thus I only used Dado-and-Tongue, & Slip joints, to hold the racks together.
Continue Reading…
I picked this little beauty up on eBay a few weeks back and finally got around to cleaning her this weekend. She’s in pretty good shape, so after a quick cleaning, lapping and sharpening she is now ready to make shavings.
